Edge
Edge is one of the original six characters of Rising Thunder. Piloted by Sun Li and representing China, Edge is a rushdown-type character who swings his one-handed Chinese straight sword to bring justice to the land. His Alpha specials charge up his sword with power, and his Beta specials let him cash out his stored power with invincible attacks. His Gamma special is a fast command run that gives him numerous options to close the gap and open up the enemy. These, combined with his sword combos and reach, make Edge into a powerful combatant skilled at spacing and close-quarters combat. Edge is the only character of the original six marked with a "Hard" difficulty level. Biography Quotes (Anyone who can provide additional kanji and translations for Edge's quotes would be appreciated.) Appearance Edge is a mech that looks and moves much like an ancient Chinese footsoldier. Its primary color scheme is red and gray with gold trim, outfitted with light armor and even a "helmet" with a glowing green tuft atop it. With a lightly-armored frame, Edge's movement style emphasizes agility and grace, in line with the Chinese martial arts and swordplay it shows off. Speaking of, Edge is never seen without its one-handed Chinese short sword and sheath, with an electric green energy blade and a circular guard and pommel; the guard allows display of up to three circulating pips, and as the blade powers up, it becomes brighter and more suffused with energy. Many people liken Edge's design to that of a Gundam from the Mobile Suit Gundam anime/manga series. Personality Sun Li, Edge's pilot, is a proud warrior who speaks, moves and strikes with purpose in all that he does. He's something of a warrior-poet, a fighter who tends to wax philosophical on various topics and speaks on matters via metaphor or in an otherwise heady and aloof manner. More than anything, he believes himself a protector and champion of the downtrodden, holding to the belief that "the strong must protect the weak." Story Stage Theme Music Moveset Movement Options Normals Specials Meter and Super Combos Also see: Edge combo videos = Strategy The general direction of Edge's gameplay favors a rushdown style of play. His main combo tool is his Alpha special, the Gathering Storm. It does not knock down but it does fair damage, comes out quickly, and has the shortest cooldown of his moves. On block it has decent recovery and most characters will be at a loss to punish it outright. It has the ability to be comboed off any of his standing normals and crouching Light and Medium attacks and can be canceled on either hit into his Super Move (Final Judgement). The aerial version has some applications as an air-to-air but is not typically a good option to cash in when its potential on the ground is so good. Its unique property is it powers up his Beta special, Judgment. Each time you connect with the Gathering Storm, he can add additional hits to the Judgment by pressing the Beta special button successively after the first hit. By itself Judgment is a solid anti-air tool and if you have it charged (indicated by his sword glowing), you can use it for a combo to push an opponent back to the other side of the screen. Judgment's charges can be stacked up to three times (indicated by the blade's glow and the number of dots circling on the handguard). However Judgment has the longest cooldown time of any of his special moves so be wary of times when it is unavailable. At maximum charge, the final hit of Judgment will cause a wall bounce. His Gamma special is the Relentless Pursuit and is primarily a mixup tool. Pressing the Gamma button will cause Edge to dash forwards about the length of one screen. During this time press a regular attack button to execute one of three follow-ups: pressing Light will cause Edge to perform a low slide kick that knocks down, Medium will perform a hopping two hit overhead slash, and Heavy will perform a wide sliding slash that causes a wall bounce. The Light follow-up can hit an opponent falling from Edge's Super (you need to have good timing for this so practice this follow-up). The Medium version is his best option for damage as it can be comboed into his Gathering Storm (which can then combo to Super; this is Edge's most damaging option for landing his Super but because of the nature of Relentless Pursuit this makes it an unreliable punish in most scenarios). The Hard version can also combo into Super (with proper timing following the wall bounce) but it is also the worst follow-up option for Relentless Pursuit because it is easy to block. The cooldown timer is engaged by starting the dash, not performing the follow-up so be aware of this. You will mostly be relying on the Medium version due to its high damage option but do not ignore the Light follow-up as it is useful for conditioning an opponent to block low in order to open them up for the Medium version. Holding Back during the dash will cause Edge to stop (although there is some recovery). Done right, this can close the gap quickly and open an opponent up for a throw. Edge's strengths are his ability to rush an opponent down with proper use of Relentless Pursuit to mix them up and to stay at arm's length with Gathering Storm. Forward and Medium attack produces a fast overhead which can shake an opponent out of a crouch block but cannot be comboed out of while jumping and pressing Down and Hard will perform a backwards attack that is used for crossing up. While Judgment makes a good anti-air, its long cooldown time can leave you stranded so use it wisely (if you think an opponent is coming in with something that wouldn't necessarily need an anti-air as a response, avoid cashing in Judgment). Edge's weakness is at breaking defense. While the follow-ups to Relentless Pursuit are good for mixup, they are unsafe on block and against a grappler such as Talos, this can be fatal. His other specials are not noteworthy enough to make them a threat when going up against a defensive foe so rely more on trying to mix up properly with Relentless Pursuit and his normal attacks. To make up for this deficiency, Edge should use Kinetic Advance mode to dash out of unsafe mixups. His pokes are also not the best in the game but can be considered fairly average. Edge has no anti-air options except for Judgment forcing Edge players to deal with jumping foes cautiously. Punishing with Edge is fairly straightforward. If you don't need to hit-confirm, avoid doing so as damage scaling severely cripples his Super's damage output to the point that you would have been better just doing the Super by itself. Edge's most powerful punish combo at mid-screen is Gathering Storm, Final Judgment, Relentless Pursuit Light follow-up. His standard hit-confirm combo is crouching Light attack three times, Gathering Storm, Final Judgment, Relentless Pursuit Light. If you are in the corner and land the Super, you can follow up with Judgment instead of Relentless Pursuit Light for maximum damage (it will be at least level 1 due to hitting the Gathering Storm). You need to walk forward a little in order to connect the Judgment on the corner. Matchups Main cast Atlas Edge In the mirror match, Edge players should be wary of the other Edge's Relentless Pursuit slide. As you are both playing rushdown characters, the desire to be up close is mutual so carefully control your space and try to catch poorly timed slides. Note attempted Judgments as, being an Edge player yourself, the long cooldown will allow you to push hard from the air due to Edge's lack of anti-air options outside of Judgment. Dauntless Dauntless is a fairly even match for Edge. Dauntless can outpoke Edge with her crouching Middle attack but doesn't have the same overhead options as Edge. Be patient and wait for overcommits in this match as Dauntless's attacks generally have poor recovery. When pushed a typical response will be a Dust Breaker so look out for these and try to feel for when an opponent will attempt them in order to punish. Chel Chel has good zoning abilities with her projectiles but she can easily whiff her specials. Bait whiffs as this is key because range is not your friend in this matchup. Although Edge's defense breaking abilities are somewhat undesirable, in this match it can beneficial to force Chel to play defensively as you can read her more easily than when she moves around. Her foot speed is the best in the game so try not to let her overwhelm you in the neutral game. Crow Crow is a positive match for Edge due to his reliance on traps. Crow players will typically throw traps out at range expecting jump-ins but the easy counter to this is Light Relentless Pursuit up close. In close expect them to employ invisibility but this too is a crutch against Edge and he can stay in close for the most part. If you are going to play up close against Crow, keep an eye on your Judgment charge as it is typically a catch-all while he's cloaked. Talos Talos can be a difficult match for Edge if played well. Due to his grapples, he can afford to risk a few hits in order to snare Edge in a grapple. He is easily punished for a missed grapple, however, so be prepared to bait these. On wakeup be wary if Talos is charging a grapple as you'll need to jump away (dashing back does not have enough invincible frames to prevent you from being grappled). Try to catch him with a Medium Relentless Pursuit if he is playing defensively waiting for a grapple. Talos's armored boot is a problem for Edge as Edge is reliant on being near his opponent and the boot is good at tagging characters who are dashing backwards. The only attack that hits twice fast enough to break Talos's armor in most cases is Gathering Storm but hitting this can be awkward from the neutral position so it's better to be careful up close than to think you can beat a boot. If you block the boot, Talos can be hit with standing Hard twice, which can combo into a Gathering Storm. Talos is somewhat susceptible to tick throwing so do try this if you feel the neutral game is not working in your favor. Vlad Vlad is another challenging character for Edge because of his solid frame advantage. If he charges in with Wolverine Rush, the pushback from the attack makes it safe against Edge (however, most Vlad players will go on the defensive after this attack so try to use a Medium Relentless Pursuit to go overhead). Furthermore his uppercut is delayable to the point where you have committed to an attack and has lots of startup invincibility to prevent attempts at catching the move on the way up. Be alert and try to get him to whiff. Vlad will often try to keep the space in front of him clear with missiles but this can be used to your advantage if he uses a jumping missile (you can slide under it and meet him on the ground). Downloadable characters Revisions Below is a list of changes to the character from version to version. Alpha Build 1235 * Edge’s Binary Flux (S1v2) is a new double-projectile which powers up his S2! * Extended hurt-boxes on some moves to better match their active hitboxes: Edge’s far s.M, far s.H, c.L, and c.M * Standardized block pushback caused by normal sweep attacks: Edge’s c.H * Corrected an issue that gave the first hit of Edge’s close s.H -> H an extra frame of hit stun. * Edge’s Overdrive damage has been reduced from 300 to 275. * Edge’s Gathering Storm (S1v1) recovery has been increased slightly. * Edge’s Relentless Pursuit (S3) behaves more intuitively after passing under a jumping opponent and stops automatically when reaching a wall. Build 1263 * F+M has been overhauled with an updated animation, slightly longer startup and recovery, and more accurate hurt-boxes. * S2 block stun reduced to 15 frames. * S2 no longer hits opponents behind Edge. * S3 slide block stun has been reduced by 2 frames. It is still safe on block, but the opponent has frame advantage. * S3 overhead hit is no longer cancelable into specials.- S3 overhead hit stun has been increased by 1 frame * Eye gleam added to Edge’s Overdrive attack. Build 1292 * New S1 variant! Tranquil Thunder allows Edge to charge up his sword and Kinetic/Overdrive meters without hitting the opponent. * S3 overhead is no longer cancelable into Overdrive. * Edge’s model is now textured! Who will be next? * Slight pose improvement for Edge’s F+M. Build 1312 * Edge upgraded his sword’s tech. Build 1330 * Tranquil Thunder now gains meter without requiring full sword charge. Alpha to Beta Beta to Retail Trivia * See also * Edge guides * Edge combo videos * Edge mentors External links * References __FORCETOC__ Category:Characters